London  - Britain's Barclays bank said in London Friday it plans to raise some 7.3 billion pounds (11.8 billion dollars) in fresh capital from investors, mostly from the Middle East.

Barclays said the move fulfilled government regulations for raising capital and avoided a government bail-out for the bank, keeping it "strong and independent."

The investments would mostly come from state funds and the royal families in Qatar and Abu Dhabi, but also from existing shareholders and institutional investors.

There would be no dividend paid out for the end of 2008.

The bank said that preliminary results for the first nine months of 2008 were "slightly ahead" of the same period in 2007.

Barclays was hit by a 1.2-billion-pound write-down as a result of the global financial crisis, but they were offset by "fair valuation" gains of over 1 billion pounds in October that resulted in a net loss of 129 million pounds. (dpa)